The term green screen has entered the mainstream language due to its widespread use by television production companies. The technical term, Chroma key compositing, or Chroma keying, involves positioning a subject in front of a monochromatic color background, capturing an image/video of the subject while simultaneously layering a desired background replacement content behind the captured image/video, and removing any visibility of the monochromatic background captured thereby displaying the background replacement content as located behind the subject. The result is an image/video where the subject deceptively appears to be in a location different from their actual location in front of the monochromatic background. Thus, a person can capture an image/video appearing to be in front of a warm sunny beach when they are actually located in a cold dark warehouse. Television production companies use Chroma key compositing for a variety of uses, including news, special effects, and video games. One of the most well-known examples is a weatherperson that appears to stand in front of a map of a given location going over the forecast, when in reality, the weatherperson is standing and looking at a blank “green screen”.
As aforementioned, Chroma key compositing consists of layering two images together with respect to color hues, wherein a specified color range is essentially made transparent, enabling a background replacement to be visible. Any color can be used as the monochromatic color, but green and blue are the most typical colors, as they provide the best distinction from most human skin colors.
Lighting is an important factor to perfecting a Chroma key composite since imperfect or non-uniform lighting on a monochromatic background may impede color neutrality, thereby potentially causing distortions in the background replacement content as it is layered. As such, traditional Chroma key compositing used by television production studios require an extensive amount of equipment, include a large monochromatic background that is surrounded by sufficient lighting, so as to ensure that a true color neutral background is achieved. Moreover, production companies may employ post-production techniques in order to correct any imperfections in such color neutrality. As such, the process in creating a high-quality Chroma key composite is time-consuming and expensive, considering the large amount of space and equipment that may be required. These requirements therefore place a burden on the average consumer attempting to execute this process, commonly known as “mobile content capture”, rendering difficulties in creating such high-quality Chroma key composites.
Current software applications exist that enable a smart device, such as a smartphone, to create a Chroma key composite image/video. However, unlike television production companies that use high quality cameras with large lights shining on the subject and background while also employing post-production techniques, a smart device's limited capability requires the image to be captured from a much closer distance to the subject. As a result, a monochromatic background is susceptible to lighting imperfections, such as shadows cast by the subject, or hotspots from unwanted external sources of light, which, result in the background replacement exhibiting such imperfections, the results of which can be fuzzy pixels in the recording or live broadcast. Thus, this provides a strain to the feasibility for an average consumer in creating a broadcast quality, high-definition Chroma key composite live and in real-time in any desired location with a smart device, considering the extensive equipment and resources that is required to create a monochromatic background that exhibits color neutrality due to uniform lighting.
It should, therefore, be appreciated that there exists a need for a system and method for creating Chroma key composite images/videos using a smart device, wherein lighting imperfections can be corrected live and in real-time to provide a color neutral background. The present invention fulfills this need and others.